


loth-cat, run

by bearonthecouch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, Jedi Training (Star Wars), Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: In his loneliness, he makes demands that sound like “come” and “stay.” The force of that base need tears at Kanan's soul.“I won't hurt you,” Ezra repeats, but the loth-cat still resists, and tries to run.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus
Comments: 1
Kudos: 51





	loth-cat, run

“I've been on my own since I was seven,” Ezra demands. Kanan sighs. There is an aching emptiness within him that resonates exactly with what the boy is saying.

“I've never told you about my Master,” he says quietly.

“What's that got to do with anything?”

Ezra sits with his arms crossed over his knees and his chin resting atop them. He often balls himself up like this, makes himself small, and Kanan sees the defensiveness of the action. He is certain he has never seen Ezra truly relaxed. He's always tense, alert, ready for a fight. He's a survivor. He may not have been trained as a Jedi, but he's a fighter just like Kanan had been at his age.

What he remembers most about the war is running, deflecting blaster bolts with his new lightsaber, using the Force to throw himself up over the walls and rooftops of Separatist cities or to put on bursts of speed or shield himself while hiding in open grasslands while battle droids moved forward inexorably, step by step.

“She taught me how to survive,” he says, and the words nearly get caught in his throat, accompanied as they are by memories that burn hot enough to hurt.

“Good for you,” Ezra mutters. He'd had no one to teach him, had to figure out everything for himself, and his stomach still remembers the sharp pangs of constant hunger; his body knows the sting of the icy winds of winter, and he knows what it is to be alone.

Kanan reaches out a gentle hand, and rests his palm against Ezra's leg. The boy picks his head up, startled, but he does not meet Kanan's eyes. Neither does he voice a protest. “Survival is not the lesson you need to learn,” Kanan says calmly.

 _Duh_ , Ezra thinks, as he rolls his eyes, but Kanan has a way of saying things that sound completely obvious while in reality they pulse with deeper meaning. “Then what do I need to learn, Master?”

His tone is just on the edge of sarcastic, and Kanan nearly snaps at him. But Ezra's disrespectful attitude doesn't mean the same thing as it may have coming from a kid like Caleb Dume, who'd grown up in the shelter of the Jedi Temple all his life. Kanan removes his hand from Ezra's knee and wraps it around his own leg, mimicking the boy's posture.

“To let things in, you have to let things out,” he announces.

“What's _that_ supposed to mean?”

“It means you have to feel your feelings, kid. You can't keep everything bottled up, not forever.”

“I thought Jedi weren't supposed to _have_ feelings.”

“Who told you that?”

Kanan reaches out a hand as he gets to his feet, inviting Ezra to take it. He doesn't. He doesn't even move. Kanan crosses his arms over his chest and scans the horizon, where the colors of sunset are just beginning to make themselves known. There are moments when Lothal really is an idyllic world. Even after all these years, Kanan still craves the constant noise and action of the city-planet of Coruscant. Life there was bright, dazzling. Blinding, even. Lothal is quieter. Out in the fields, a loth-cat stirs, hungry and curious.

“Close your eyes,” Kanan orders. For once, Ezra does what he's told, without hesitation or argument. Kanan allows a tiny smile to quirk at his lips. “Now _feel_ ,” he says. “Sense the loth-cat. Call out to it.”

“Loth-cats don't come close to people.”

“Stop making excuses. I _know_ you can do this.”

He has so much untapped power, it swirls and dances in reaction to Kanan's own Force presence, and even the proximity of the loth-cat, undeniably alive, though hidden in the tall grasses. Kanan can feel it as Ezra sends out a tentative probe toward the animal, a hint of a question – or an invitation – riding the gesture.

“Come on,” the boy murmurs, under his breath. “Come on, I won't hurt you.” The loth-cat yawns, but its body has grown tense, and its eyes fix on Ezra, unblinking. “Come _on,_ ” Ezra growls, and the loth-cat growls in return.

Kanan finds himself holding his breath, watching the exchange. The loth-cat is a wild animal, ready with teeth and claws. But Ezra... he isn't afraid anymore. Interesting.

Kanan opens himself up a little more, trying to get a read on his Padawan. Not that it's hard. The boy is projecting his feelings so fiercely and so loudly that Kanan has to wrestle to hold onto his sense of self. In his loneliness, the boy has grabbed on to the loth-cat and is dragging it closer, forcing it to his side. In his loneliness, he makes demands that sound like “come” and “stay.” The force of that base need tears at Kanan's soul.

“I won't hurt you,” Ezra repeats, but the loth-cat still resists, and tries to run.

“Let go,” Kanan mutters, knowing that the tighter the boy attempts to hold, the fiercer the little animal will fight. He wraps his arm tightly around the teenager's shoulders. “Let go,” he repeats, and Ezra shifts a little in his arms, breathing heavily, still radiating pain, and loss.

“I couldn't do it,” he spits. “I couldn't even get the stupid loth-cat to come to me. No wonder you don't want me as a Padawan. I mess everything up.”

Kanan knows how Depa Billaba would have responded to such a display of self-pity, but Ezra doesn't need a Jedi's discipline right now. Ezra doesn't need a Master, not even Kanan Jarrus. He needs someone who understands him, a child like Caleb Dume.

“This may surprise you,” Kanan says. “But I did not always succeed at my lessons as a Padawan.”

“Really?” Ezra teases, and Kanan smiles.

“Should I tell you first about the time I lost my lightsaber under the seas of Mon Calamari, or the time I crashed the diplomatic speeder with the senator from Chalacta aboard?”

“The loth-cat didn't trust me,” Ezra says, not easily swayed from the lesson. Kanan's opinion of the boy rises another notch. He shows it by looking the boy in the eyes, man to man.

“Do you trust me?” he asks simply. He lets go, a little, opens himself up, letting Ezra _see_ him, if he wants to. He lets the boy see his feelings for Hera, his still-present nightmares of Order 66 and the sacrifice Depa made for him, his fears that he will let Ezra down with his inexperience as a teacher. He lets him see _love_ , in all its complexity and color.

“Wow,” Ezra breathes, his expression one of rapt attention and wonder.

“Did you really think this was about a loth-cat, kid?” Kanan asks.

Ezra shifts a little bit closer to Kanan, and grins. “Let me tell you about the time I stole an Imperial mouse droid,” he starts.


End file.
